GREEK authorities removed a Belgian artist's painting from a state-funded modern art exhibition today after the Greek Orthodox Church and conservative lawmakers complained it offends religious values.
The painting by Belgian artist Thierry de Cordier, part of the modern art show Outlook which opened its doors in Athens October 25, features a penis facing a cross, the daily Eleftherotypia wrote.
"The intense debate that was provoked tends to overshadow the exhibition's substance and to prevent the general public from coming into contact with modern art," said in a written statement Greece's Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, a socialist.
An announcement explaining why the painting was withdrawn will be put up in its place, Venizelos said.
The first to denounce the painting had been far-right, populist parliament deputy Yiorgos Karatzaferis.
Greece's conservative, main opposition party New Democracy (ND) and Epiphanios Oikonomou, spokesman for the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, rallied to the same cause.
"If this work does not come down ... I will unhook it and tear it personally apart," former prime ministerial candidate and high-ranking ND member Miltiadis Evert was quoted by Eleftherotypia as saying.
"Vulgarity does not create culture," ND spokesman Thodoris Roussopoulos said in a written statement.
A prosecutor ordered a preliminary inquiry late today, the semi-official ANA news agency reported.
The Outlook exhibition is bankrolled by the Greek government. It forms part of a string of high-profile cultural events in Greece and abroad in the run-up to the Athens 2004 Olympics.